


Much more

by aucellaq



Series: Moments Inside and Between [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, but like the aftermath of it, caleb has issues and nobody is really surprised, ep 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aucellaq/pseuds/aucellaq
Summary: Caleb needs to recollect himself after his panic attack in the mines of Alfield, and finds an unlikely friend in the circus tiefling.





	Much more

**Author's Note:**

> and i have returned
> 
> This little thing has just been on my mind since episode 7 of season 2 came out, and i just needed to write it down, just sorta to connect the dots for myself. i have a lot of experience with (all kinds of) panic attacks, and the aftermath of it is usually uncomfortable and real bad if you don't have some help. it's likely some pieces of your memory is missing after fading out for a while, and i like to think Nott willing to help him, but not able to do it well because she's so protective of him. so bc im such a trashbaby for widoleaf i figured Molly knew how to deal w it a lil better. No porn in this one, for once, so enjoy the small, but comfortable, piece.

 Caleb woke up late into the night.

 No, he didn’t wake up. He hadn’t been sleeping. He wasn’t in a bed, or laying down for that sake either. He realized, slowly, they’d all returned to the small town of Alfield, and that he was sitting on a bench outside with Nott right beside him, drinking from a glass of beer taller than her head.

 He took a deep breath and tried to focus. Panic attacks were a rare occurrence since he met the goblin girl, so it surprised him how calm she seemed. How long had it been? How many hours had he been lost in the haze of regret and self-hatred? How much had he said this time?

 Not much, it seemed, because once Nott noticed him stirring, she only offered him a small smile before returning to her drink. When he opened his mouth, however, she was surprised.

 “Is there a drink for me too?” he asked, raspy from the time being so quiet.

 Nott nodded carefully, pointing to the tall glass right next to him. He’d been so swallowed up trying to distract himself he hadn’t even noticed.

 “Feeling better?” she attempted, once he’d taken the glass and tentatively sipped it. “You were really out of it for a long time. Nobody knew what to do.”

 He listened to her explain what had gone down after his break, while trying to make sense of the moments himself. Flashes of a screaming manticore and Nott with a dagger over its child came sullenly back, but anything afterward was dark. He remembered the anger that dwelled in him, not over himself, but over Nott, and then realized it wasn’t anger at all. It was fear.

 He’s seen the young goblin throw herself headfirst into danger and wiggle out without him a hundred times now. She didn’t like doing it, but did when it was necessary; that’s why they stuck together. Caleb didn’t want to feel responsible for someone else again, and Nott didn’t need to be doted like a child. But overtime, she’d become important to him, because even though Caleb was a bitter and broken man who’d given up on the world, she didn’t leave. No matter how odd or quiet he would get, she stayed, and he never dared asking her for more.

 In that moment of flame and trauma, more than anything, he’d been afraid to lose not just a companion, but another friend. All because of his own ambition to find danger but never escape it without help.

 He leaned over the drink and sighed. “I am not sure what I feel right now, exactly, but better may be the right word, yes.”

 Nott leaned against him. She wasn’t very warm and her bony form made an uncomfortable jab in his hip, but he let her stay. Her presence was the only proof that it was over. Not just the fight, but everything else. He’d escaped, and he was in a town that celebrated life with loud laughter and cold drinks.

 Their beer wasn’t like the sort he had at home. Caleb never had a taste of it, but he knew Zemnia was famous for their alcohol, rivaling with their neighbors to who could satisfy the tongue and mind better. This one was a little damp and without much flavor, but it was cold and it was booze, and it was what he needed to settle back into his skin after leaving it for so long.

 “Did they say anything?” he asked after a long silence. Nott looked up at him confused. “The others. Our, group?” The idea of it was still strange to him. “Did they ask you what was the matter with me?”

 “I wouldn’t have been able to say much, if they did. Molly seemed to know what to do, though, he snapped you out of the worst of it and got you moving. Then Beau helped you out. I think everyone was a bit shaken afterwards.”

 Nott spoke so quietly, so much like he was glass. Right now, maybe he was, but whatever he was before that, hadn’t been much stronger when he bended so easily. She yawned, and he almost smiled. It was very late, even for them, and it had indeed been a long day.

 “Go sleep,” he said, assuming they found some rooms.

 “Are you sure?” she asked, squinting at him, though she hardly kept her eyes open.

 “Ja. I will be gut.”

 She nodded again, slower this time, and dragged herself off the bench and headed toward the burnt out buildings. Caleb did not keep looking for her till she was gone, he’d rather tear his eyes away a little faster. He still couldn’t get attatched. After a few heartbeats and a good slurp of beer for the nerves, he stood up.

 The afterparty was dying down when he found the charming tiefling sat inside an almost upright standing inn with half a drink in hand, focusing much too hard on the shelf of bottles ahead of him. Molly was swaying ever so slightly in his seat when Caleb sat down beside him.

 “I hear you helped me to my senses,” he opened, earning an interested glance from him.

 “I did, though perhaps the slap was overdoing it.”

 “You slapped me?”

 Molly smiled and let out a faint laugh, toasting his glass in to nobody. “And he doesn’t even remember! I could have just not told you and avoided the awkward apology.”

 Caleb leaned over. “You were planning to apologize for it?”

 Molly shrugged with his whole body, almost spilling some of the drink. He could easily hold the alcohol in his body but not a glass. “Like I said; I was overdoing it. A slap isn’t a good response to a man in panic – I could have made it much worse.”

 “You seem well versed in that sort of thing.”

 He shrugged again, though with less of the dramatics. More relaxed. “You see a lot in a circus, a lot of different people come about, all of them with their own demons, and nobody able to deal with it better than the next guy. You get used to shaking folks down and soothing their cries after a while. Sometimes it’s just a comfort knowing someone´s there.”

 It was more of a conversation than Caleb had planned for, but just as well was Molly. Much more than Caleb had planned.

 “I don’t assume you’ll tell me why it happened,” Molly went on, looking quizzically into his glass, “but like I said, I know demons when I see them, and yours look horrid, my friend. If you need another slap, I’m your man.”

 A familiar flame alit in his chest by the mention of his support, but even more in how he phrased it. It wasn’t a bad flame, but one he hadn’t felt in a while, and so he nodded, thanked Molly, and left to find whatever room Nott was snoozing in.

 Daylight was creeping over the hills, and the pull of exhaustion put Caleb to drag his feet to wherever his travel-companions pointed him to, and as he hit the pillow he allowed the darkness back almost as fast as he’d escaped it. Only this time, the old flame kept his demons away.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i actually speak german, growing up in a country literally above germany, but i only mix minimal german into calebs speech and def not into his accent, so when i write "gut" i mean the german word for "good", and only used it cause it would be natural to use around Nott. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> i have a lot of scenes in mind regarding what happens sort of between and behind the episodes, and inside their heads, but mostly Calebs bc i relate to him a whole lot would you believe it, so im open to the possebility to continue this as a series of chapters documenting everything in-between i've thought out, and more (absolutely leading it toward a widoleaf narrative eventually), if anyone is up for it. comment w ur opinion


End file.
